March 17, 2011

ST: MediaCorp says sorry for insensitive ad push

Prime News

Mar 14, 2011

MediaCorp says sorry for insensitive ad push

BROADCASTER MediaCorp has issued an apology for sending out marketing e-mail last Friday urging advertisers to capitalise on breaking news about the earthquake in Japan.

The e-mail said its news channel would be carrying extended reports on the disaster.

It asked recipients to call its sales representatives to book advertising slots for the weekday evening programmes, which were expected to draw sizeable audiences.

Netizens were outraged when they read the e-mail, which popular blogger Mr Brown posted on his blog the same day he received it.

One of those who found the e-mail insensitive was Mr Benjamin Koe, who heads client leadership at JamiQ, a social media monitoring firm.

'I understand that they see it as a marketing opportunity, since I'm from the marketing industry myself, but for MediaCorp to blast it out this way is just exploitative and in poor taste,' he said.

On Saturday, the broadcaster released a statement from senior vice-president of marketing and sales planning Edwin Koh, who said the direct mail was sent to clients and agencies 'that had an interest in being part of 'breaking news' coverage'.

'The staff concerned has been counselled to be more circumspect; we hope the public will be forgiving and we can focus our attention and efforts on the affected victims of this most unfortunate tragedy,' he said.